What's easier, reviving a long dead forum or starting a new one?

And by a long dead forum, I mean one that's been mostly inactive for months or years on end with no real regular userbase.

Is it easier to revive one of those, or just start a new forum in the topic?

Personally, I suspect the latter might be easier in many cases, it seems there's more hype for a brand new site than a revived or retooled one, probably because people seem to prefer being part of something new than part of something that went out of fashion months or years ago.

But what do you think?

 

As with most things, I think it depends.

WHY did it fail in the first place, for example? If it's for reasons that can't be revived, then it's definitely better to start over....or to give up on that topic entirely actually. If there used to be a regular userbase, though, then it could be worth trying to recover. Most people won't come back, but a few might....and all that old content could potentially be great for search engines, backlinks, and sparking new conversation.

 

Reviving a old forum is easier, because you'll already have lots of content to work from, and you're not starting from scratch.

 

It all depends on what happened with the old site, if that one had a bad reputation then it is possibly best to start fresh and build up. However if the old site went well and you just went inactive until things sort of stopped moving, then it is possible to still revive the forum.

 

Probably reviving a dead forum because you already have some content to work with.

 

Reviving a dead forum is freaking hard. Don't let anyone tell you differently.

 

I thought you were doing a lot better than the last time we talked. =/ I didn't think it would be that hard considering you have a lot of content available to your users. Are you doing post exchanges or using post loop to help you from time to time?

 

It would really just depend, I imagine. If you had members who genuinely liked your community, then it will be easier. But if was very inactive for a very long time and few people actually liked the forum, it would probably be better to just start afresh with a new idea (or the same one, even, anew), to keep away bad thoughts and give it a fresh slate.

 

wouldn't it be easier to revive a dead site simply because of established content?

 

Depends if the old forum is even worth reviving. If it's about something that has become absolutely old and obsolete, like, and this is just an example, a forum about the world ending in 2012, then I'd much rather prefer starting a new forum from scratch. On the other hand, if an old forum still has potential and already has some threads and users, then I'd work hard on it to make it come back to life, just like a zombie.

 

I think it's easier to revive an established forum IF it hasn't filled up with spam since last being active. Once a forum is overrun with spam and pharmaceutical links it's pretty much dead to google and you can't just delete the offending posts, you have to cut off the thread they are in entirely or move it to a new url.

Google remembers urls with spam on them, they never seem to rank well again.

 

Whenever I change servers and hosts I change my forum.
That way it stays clean and away from those who want to take you down in court.
New database every time.
Then I can make changes to it and it would be a better system.

 

What's with the court talk? I've never met a forum member yet who seriously followed through with a law suit. Actually I chuckle when I hear someone say they are a lawyer in a forum because if they really were they'd know it's pointless to say. You either sue or you don't, threats go nowhere.

 

I think relive this forum is much easier than you start a new one, since you already have the server, domain and even some users, what you can do is to give a new face to the forum, etc..
Of course it also depends on the theme, because it can be a "content" much used.

 

This is something that I'm actually dealing with, and I would not want to have to start all over. At least a revived forum is filled with content and registered member accounts, so that's a huge start even if the old members never return.

 

Honestly, I'm not sure.

If a site fails then it could be because the site was never appealing enough to begin with, whether it be the concept, purpose, layout, content etc. If that's the case, then you need to do a lot of work to give it it's "rebirth". That said, if you restart the site you'll likely to get a handful or so of people return because they enjoyed the website to begin with, giving you a head-start in terms of users.

 

I'm going through that right now with a forum. It's not easy either way. This forum was actually shut down for two years because of various issues. The problem with an old database is invalid emails. You send out a "we're back" email to everyone and you may get spam banned if too many of those emails are invalid accounts. So first I deleted all the 0 post users that had registered to use my old game tools or play in the arcade. Then I simply emailed the former top members and posted on the page they hang out at on at Facebook.

So we have a spark but a ways to go before there is a fire for people to warm their hands with. It's hard work either way in this age of social media sites.

 

I would say creating a new one for the same reason that you described. Everyone likes to be a part of something new, it kind of infuses you with a good energy. Then it starts to become stale, unless there's a tight team of people providing value constantly. Because every forum will, whether you want it or not, a LOT of leechers and few value givers. Important to keep the ones who give value around by giving them something valuable through really meaningful posts, meaningful discussions or resources they can use to make their lives better.

 

This. It really depends on why the site died in the first place.

 

Create a new one using the old forum's content and you just keep building from there with more unique content on your forum. It's okay to use that old database to seed your forum, it'll give you a boast on opening and building a member base pretty fast.